GECHS

In this report GECHS, in collaboration with several leading institutions within the climate change community, analyzes recent literatures on the human dimensions of climate change and the risk perspective. Recognition of the threats to human security associated with climate change has generated growing interest in the relationship between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. There is an intuitive understanding that the two are closely linked, yet it has been difficult to elaborate a common framework for addressing disaster risk in the context of climate change.

The findings of this report suggest a timely need to assess the role that disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation can play in minimizing threats to human security. The risk of more complex, frequent, intense or unpredictable extreme weather events associated with global temperature increases, changing precipitation patterns and sea level rise, coupled with both gradual and non-linear changes to ecosystems and natural resources, suggests the need for a renewed focus on the ways that disaster risk reduction and adaptation can influence the context in which climate change occurs. Rather than creating or perpetuating contexts for disaster, it is possible to use disaster risk reduction and adaptation strategies to create a context that promotes human well-being and security.

This report and a comprehensive bibliography served as a background and support for an International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR)/Norway lead proposal, presented at the 28th session of the IPCC in 1-4 September 2008, for an IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risk of Extreme Events to Advance Climate Change Adaptation”. The writing of the report and the bibliography was funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

GECHS has written a report on climate adaptation for the Development Fund, a Norwegian NGO working with environment and development projects through southern organizations and networks. The aim of the report is threefold:

1. to present a method for examining poverty reduction projects and programs based on a comprehensive approach to climate adaptation, in order to identify, plan, and evaluate climate adaptation activities;
2. to identify what sustainable adaptation measures can look like in development projects;
3. to present some guiding principles for the design and implementation of climate change adaptation in poverty reduction strategies and activities.

The report was launched during the 30th year anniversary of the Development Fund on September 9th 2008. Authors were Kirsten Ulsrud, Linda Sygna and Karen O’Brien at the GECHS project, in close collaboration with the Development Fund and it’s partners in Nicaragua, Nepal and Ethiopia. The report, “More than rain: Identifying sustainable pathways for climate adaptation and poverty reduction”, can be downloaded here.

The 7th International Science Conference (Open Meeting), originally planned for 15-19 October 2008 in New Delhi, will now be relocated to Bonn, Germany, and will take place from 26-30 April 2009 at the former German Parliament premises on the United Nations Campus. All panel, paper and poster acceptances for the Open Meeting remain valid. GECHS will contribute with numerous sessions and paper presentations in the conference. A second call for papers is now open, and will close 31 October 2008. This call is particularly addressed toward new applicants, who are invited to submit their papers and posters. Those who have already submitted to the first call are also invited to submit one more paper or poster for consideration. With the theme of the 7th Open Meeting, “Social Challenges of Global Change”, IHDP wants to indicate the need to incorporate not only the general discussion about climate change, but also many other environmental changes which happen in our society: resource shortages, the destruction of ecosystem services, and new threats to human health.

Four core questions on the social aspects of environmental change will be addressed:

• How do we deal with demographic challenges?
• How do we deal with limitations of resources and ecosystem services?
• How do we maintain social cohesion while increasing (global) equity?
• How do we adapt institutions to address global change?

For more details on specific themes identified for the second call for papers, see the conference website. Deadline for abstract submission in the second call is the 31 October 2009.

In the Copenhagen Science Congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, a major session will be organized by J. Timmons Roberts from the College of William and Mary, USA, and Coleen Vogel from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Two types of contributions are sought for two sub-sessions: The first sub-session welcomes broad characterizations of the inequities involved in adapting to climate change, such as how vulnerability and adaptation interact with national poverty, regional imbalances in adaptive capacity, adaptation in the context of national colonial histories, and the ethics of imposing the adaptation burden in an already unequal world. This sub-session will ideally also reflect upon opportunities and barriers that might either enhance or frustrate sustainable development and resilience building efforts. The second sub-session invites contributions that discuss proposals and practice for funding climate adaptation. Several different models have been proposed to include equity issues in their frameworks for who should pay for and who should receive climate aid, including a nation’s emissions responsibility and capability to pay. This scientific conference in March will lead up to the COP-15 in Copenhagen in late 2009, and will provide a synthesis of existing and emerging scientific knowledge relevant for designing and implementing mitigation and adaptation strategies in response to climate change.

Abstracts can only be submitted online, no later than 1 September 2008.

For more information, see the conference website.

The Symposium on “Cultural Dimensions of Climate Change” is part of the XVI International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology, “Integrative Thinking forComplex Futures: Creating Resilience in Human-Nature Systems.” The conference will take place 10 – 13 September 2008, at Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington State, USA.

The basic assumption underpinning this symposium is that all personal and societal change happens within frameworks of interpretation, valuation and choice by subjects who see themselves as actual or potential agents. As such, the symposium seeks to explore the cultural dimensions of individual and social factors that may lead to mitigation to and adaptation to climate change. Reflection on schemas of interpretation and valuation that enable or constrain our capacities for action gain a particularly important role when we consider our ethical responsibilities toward present and future generations of fellow human and non-human inhabitants of this planet.

For further information on the Symposium see the conference website.